The present invention relates to computing or processing devices using electronic circuit component cards and, more particularly, to computing or processing devices contained within a chassis using a plurality of cards.
A variety of state-of-the-art computers, processors, and similar devices use electronic circuit component cards, which are also referred to as electronic cards or card devices. Examples of such electronic circuit component cards include, for example, peripheral component interconnect (xe2x80x9cPCIxe2x80x9d) cards. The industry has developed PCI and the other so-called local bus technologies to provide expansion capabilities to computer systems.
These electronic circuit component cards typically have card edge connectors for mating with the slot connectors on motherboards or backplanes. The card edge connectors and the slot connectors have a corresponding number of relatively closely spaced metal contacts in registry with each other. When the card edge connector is inserted in a slot connector, the corresponding contacts make electrical connection. Through these contacts and their electrical connection, the card device and the motherboard communicate electronically. PCI and similar electronic cards generally derive power from the motherboard or backplane through the card slot into which they are received or plugged.
For a more secure and stable connection, the front edges of the respective cards typically have metal brackets for mounting to a wall or other surface using a bracket and a conventional retainer, such as a screw or a rivet. The brackets and retainers collectively hold the cards stationary relative to the wall, which is particularly important in an environment subject to shock and vibration.
Considering the overall systems, a trend exists in their designs for redundancy and consistency to include duplicative or multiple components, such as multiple power supplies and fans. The redundancy helps to protect against productivity and economic losses associated with system downtime, which is particularly important in computing or processing devices used to perform critical business functions. In a design using redundant parts, one skilled in the art will appreciate that if one component malfunctions or fails, the system may still continue to operate. In addition, it is possible that a technician may be able to replace a defective component using xe2x80x9chot swappingxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9chot pluggingxe2x80x9d devices without either shutting down or crashing the system. This allows what is sometimes referred to as xe2x80x9cconcurrent maintenance.xe2x80x9d Current designs of rack-mount servers, however, normally use systems that retain only one card at a time. The primary reason is spatial or volumetric constraints that exist within a chassis. In fact, because of the limited space or volume within the chassis, the single card is usually required to be oriented horizontally.
The present invention provides a system that uses a plurality of electronic circuit component cards with a single motherboard or backplane. In one exemplary embodiment, the present invention comprises a card receiving system and apparatus for retaining the edges of at least two electronic circuit component cards. In this design, the present invention positions two cards horizontally so that one card is disposed above or over the other card and those two cards are oriented substantially parallel to each other.
The present invention also comprises a system in which the plurality of electronic circuit component cards may be collectively held stationarily in place relative to each other using a single positioning or retaining system.
These and other features of the card receiving system and retaining system will become more apparent from the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings that show, for purposes of illustration only, an exemplary embodiment in accordance with the present invention.